It’s nearly the end of February, there is still frost at night and some of the plants look shabby… Before I can see where the weeds are, I need to ‘tidy up’. But I need to know what’s safe to cut back.

Perennials
I am the kind of gardener who will always want to delay cutting back of herbaceous perennials and grasses for as long as possible. This is because they are homes to useful insects and are often attractive, as well as providing extra cover for the soil, which helps nutrients from being washed away with the winter rains.

Of course, if I’ve done a winter mulch of garden compost, I’ll have cut them back before doing this, in order to easily see where the gaps are and remove any perennial weeds.

At this point, I will be casting a critical eye along the borders asking myself whether a particular plant has ‘done its winter thing’ and now needs to be cut back ready for the new growth. So today I left some perfectly acceptable Sedum spectabile seed heads but also cut back the Verbena bonariensis. I try not to be too rule-obsessed about this, as gardening is an art, even though it relies on good scientific knowledge for best practice.

Shrubs
At this point I look at the shrub roses. About this time, February to March, is when I do it, making sure the plant has a good feed afterwards with rotted horse manure if it is available or seaweed feed. I have got so used to the mild winters I still worry about the frost, and there has been frost damage to even un-pruned roses, as well as to a newly planted Daphne odora and a Callistemon citrinus, which with hindsight, I should have planted in a more sheltered position. These I will not touch until I know the frost has passed, as the damaged parts will give protection to the healthy parts.

Other deciduous shrubs which flower later in the year can be pruned now and these are the ones I’m thinking of or have already done: Buddleja, Clematis ‘Polish Spirit’, Perovskia, Spiraea japonica, and Fuchsia. I am also pruning some in order to get the young growth; for example, for the bright bark colour of Cornus alba, the immature leaves of Eucalyptus or Cotinus, or for withies from Salix.

Comments (3)

Hi Good Earth Lady. You could have called this 'The Mind of the Gardener'. I love the way you take us into your thoughts about the garden. That is the way gardening happens ... and it is so definitely more Art, than the Science that underpins it. Thanks for sharing with us .. and love the photos, even the poor daffodil that flowered too soon ;-(

I love your phrase "... as gardening is an art, even though it relies on good scientific knowledge for best practice. "

So true: it's often hard to explain to garden owners that yes, there are "rules" about when things should be done, but they are not hard and fast rules, and require knowlegeable interpretation.

I love your last photo, of the Magnolia : it really shows what you meant by badgers being able to sneak in from the open country beyond your lovely garden. (Drat, now I'm doing the badger dance again!)

I would like to point out that these pictures are from various customer's gardens, not my own, which (cough) needs some work!! There were some blackened bits on some of the buds and some brown patches on some of the flowers which is probably because they were damaged by the frost, but en masse they will look fine. I don't know if Magnolias can slow down the blooming process in response to the cold, or whether they are acting purely on day-length. Rachel, do you know anything about this? So I think the damage you mention is frost, rather than anything to worry about, but apart from building some kind of structure around your magnola and covering it with fleece I can't think how you would avoid it. I get the impression your garden is quite sheltered but none of us can control when Jack Frost bites!

Yes I will prune the roses in that picture a little more (although not much more) as they were just given an autumn 'anti wind-rock' snip. I imagine there will be the odd bit of die-back and slight thinning to do. They don't need to come down too low though, as the area is quite shady and I think they need to retain a decent height. This is the first early spring I have worked in this garden with the roses so I'm still observing and possibly being more on the cautious side.

26 Feb 2016

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